Good luck suing Whyte especially if he dumps his shares. Not sure of the legalese but if he doesn't own th company how can they sue him ?

And are they only suing Whyte because they'll get nowt of a company liquidated ?

Guess there's more to run but obviously the date June 1st when all players revert to their last contracts or walk away will be huge. My guess would be most are hoping for a release, a nice signing on bonus and a lot better guaranteed wage than one from a company who can't pay it;s bills.

Oh how I am laughing my arse off.

But some small part of me says this won't be allowed eventually to happen. Lots of people I reckon looking to "buy" Ibrox and the training complex for a couple of quid (Pinky I don't think one pound will do it this time). And/or at least be able to rent it back at a couple of mill per.

Just got to hang on until tomorrow so Rangers can complete their fixtures.

The Blue Knights(TBK) / Kennedy have again withdrawn - but a press conference from them televised live has assured the Rangers fans that they are on their side and trying to save the club - unlike these other "rumoured" bidders that just want to form a 'newco'.

There is no way that TBK bid would be acceptable to the administrators or to any creditors - there's barely enough money in the bid to pay Duff & Phelps the £3m they'll be owed for their wonderful work as administrators and slashing costs (2 redundancies in 3 months of administration - compared to 200+ announced when some construction companies in Scotland went into administration yesterday!!). A CVA is going to be impossible so liquidation looms. The other potential buyers disappear - partially as a result of the fans backlash against them for threatening to destroy their club by only offering a newco as the only way out. This has been Kennedy's stance all along - I'm a willing bidder but I'll be the backstop only if no-one else comes in. The key thing to getting ongoing revenue is to appease the fans - 3 months ago when Rangers went into administration they would have lost the fans if they'd got rid of most of the team or talked about having to form a newco. By having bidder after bidder come in and then back out, they have kept coming back - and blame Duff & Phelps for not accepting their bid which would have saved Rangers. They also put a deadline on it being accepted by yesterday - as they said that anything later than this would mean a CVA could not be accomplished in time for the starts of next season - and a further 10 point deduction.

TBK/Kennedy pick up the pieces and form a 'newco' Rangers and hopefully get back into the SPL (as the SPL can't survive without them and the mythical Sky deal which no-one has seen requires them in). Craig Whyte has the charge over Ibrox & Murray Park and rents them out to the newco and will eventually sell them back to them.

Bang - £140m of debts wiped out in an instant.

The downside -

Rangers can't play in Europe for 3 seasons - in theory lose their history but a team known as Rangers playing at Ibrox would still perceive to be the same.

As a newco none of the players have to transfer across and can leave on a free (getting suitable signing on bonuses with new clubs) - apart from the players no-one wants (including Rangers) whose contracts have to be picked up under TUPE legislation by the newco.

Or - if they don't get back into the SPL they buy one of the lower SPL or 1st Division clubs and relocate them to Ibrox and change their name!

Or TBK accept that they can't afford to run a team in the SPL and opt to to join the SFL in division 3 where their costs would be much lower and they hope would quickly work their way back to the top. This might be the only option when the dual contracts stuff comes out when the Tax Tribunal announces and publishes its findings.

And the sideshow of a tiff between Ticketus and Craig Whyte - who put the money into Ticketus is the real question that needs answering.

As I am sure you are aware even the most ardent Rangers fans know that the BK bid isn't worth fkcu all. Not enough money. Murray seems to want to be perceived as doing everything that could be done to save the club. Except put enough money in to keep it going. He doesn't even have enough money it seems to chuck 500K to be the preferred bidder but keeps wishing the next bloke luck in keeping the club afloat.

What does he see as his legacy ? The bloke who tried to keep Rangers afloat but was thwarted at every turn ?

But really didn't have a pot to piss in or who wanted to pick up everything on the cheap.

Cuenca 'ammer wrote:Good luck suing Whyte especially if he dumps his shares. Not sure of the legalese but if he doesn't own th company how can they sue him ?

And are they only suing Whyte because they'll get nowt of a company liquidated ?

It's because Ticketus are potentially the big losers. If their ticket agreement isn't directly with Rangers in a form that survives administration then they've just paid £30 million for nowt because Whyte's companies shortly won't have anything to do with Rangers (either sold or liquidated). If they think that liquidation is imminent then they will obviously get nothing but getting first in the queue is quite important when it comes to recovering money through the courts so they're covering that base. I'm not sure if the details of Ticketus agreement with Rangers (or whoever) is out there, but this is probably simply covering all angles for now. It does indicate that in the view of at least one major player that the saga is drawing to a close.

They aren't really suing him personally, they're suing his companies from which they have guarantees. It could come back to him by a circuitous route if Ticketus bankrupt his companies and a court finds that he behaved illegally. That would probably take years. Ultimately for this to work out for Whyte he has to mug somebody and it appears that Ticketus were his target. I'm sure whatever money he's managed to syphon off during his brief tenure or he may be getting for his share is being squirreled away where it's very unlikely to be found.

So, a consortium led by Charles Green has agreed a deal to buy Rangers with £8.5m for creditors. They hope to achieve a CVA by 6th June(!) but if not, they will go down the Newco route. N.B. Green, once chief executive at Sheffield United, is a very unpopular man with Sheffield Utd fans.

The Appellate Tribunal will give its full reasons in writing in early course. However, in summary, it considers that:

1. It was competent for Disciplinary Tribunal to impose the additional sanction of prohibiting registrations of any new players of 18 years or older for a period of 12 months.

2. The Disciplinary Tribunal was correct to determine that the conduct involved - especially the deliberate non-payment of very large sums, estimated in excess of £13m of tax in the form of PAYE, NIC and VAT - was attributable to the club as a member of the Scottish FA.

3. The Disciplinary Tribunal was correct also in holding that the maximum fine available for this breach was £100,000, and on its own was inadequate as a punishment for this misconduct. It was therefore correct to select an additional sanction.

4. The sanctions available included expulsion from participation in the game and termination or suspension of membership of the Scottish FA, which would have had a similar effect. The Appellate Tribunal observes that serious consideration was given by the disciplinary tribunal to imposing one of these sanctions, which would have had obvious consequences for the survival of the club. The Disciplinary Tribunal rejected these as too severe and this Appellate Tribunal agrees with that conclusion.

5. Although the Appellate Tribunal has listened carefully to the representations from Rangers FC about the practical effects of the additional sanction, it has concluded that this sanction was proportionate to the breach, dissuasive to others and effective in the context of serious misconduct, bringing the game into disrepute. In particular, the Appellate Tribunal recognises that the Disciplinary Tribunal decision does not affect Rangers’ ability to extend the contracts of existing professional players, including those whose contracts will expire at the end of this season and including also those currently on loan to other clubs. The Appellate Tribunal observes that Rangers FC have over 40 professional players in this category.

Therefore, the Appellate Tribunal affirms the decision of the Disciplinary Tribunal.

York Ham(mer) wrote:Hard to see how they can avoid the newco route, QN. Unless someone puts £100+ million on the table for creditors!

The point about a CVA is that you don't agree to pay the debts in full. Realistically I think there are two thing to consider.

The market value of all of Rangers' assets. If they can't agree a CVA and the club goes to the wall then all the creditors will get is a stadium that can't be redeveloped because it's listed and some other related facilities. They would have to be sold on. The reason the market value is important to a CVA is that the newco can do what Miller was planning to do which is buy them from the club and move them elsewhere. There are laws in place to stop them taking the piss and doing it for £1, so they must pay a fair price. If they did that and old Rangers went into liquidation all that would be left would be the cash spent buying thsoe facilities for the newco. That's one side of things.

On the other side is the value of keeping the club going. If the newco has to start at the bottom of the divisions then there is a cost to the club not being in the SPL for a few years. Similarly there may be other penalties or restrictions beyond those the old Rangers has already suffered. There is also the goodwill of the fanbase to consider, they might start their own AFC Rangers and rally behind that for example leaving the newco high and dry. The owner of Rangers should be willing to make an equity injection relative to that from a rational standpoint because it's worth it for the business.

So those negotiating with Rangers should be looking at a figure that takes into account the market value of old Rangers assets plus the value to Rangers of keeping going as Rangers with no newco nonsense. Those are sums that could realistically be recovered in the short term without considering a long term payment plan. As mentioned by Gnome previously a tax deposit to continue trading could also be demanded by the tax man as they have such a bad history, I would also like to see them put Rangers (new or old) on an installment plan to pay back every penny as part of any agreement but I don't know if that's possible particularly with a newco.

An hour long documentary has just been broadcast on BBC 1 (Scotland) detailing things such as the exact amounts of money played to Rangers staff by means of EBTs that were not declared to the SPL; that Murray borrowed £50m from BOS through his company - Murray International Holdings that went directly to Rangers and still owing to Lloyds; that a partner at Duff & Phelps (the administrators) took an active part in arranging the Ticketus deal which Duff & Phelps denied all knowledge of knowing anything about when appointed administrators (major conflict of interest).

From 2001-10, Rangers put £47m in to up to 87 sub-trusts for players, coaches and staff. Separate contributions were made by Rangers' parent company, MIH.

Sir David received £6.3m via an EBT. He told the BBC he had never received any payment from any trust which involved contributions from Rangers FC.

And 10 years after leaving Rangers, Graeme Souness received a payment from the Rangers EBT:

Ten years later Mr Souness was managing the English side Blackburn Rovers, and, just five weeks after requesting a payment from the trust, he completed the signing of Turkey international midfielder Tugay Kerimoglu from Rangers.Mr Souness declined to respond to BBC Scotland’s allegations.

This now brings the FA into the picture - Souness receiving EBT payments whilst at Blackburn!!